Free Market Capitalist or Artificial Inflation Bandito?

Many times, you can find moral grey areas and controversial topics within the relatively open worlds of MMORPGs. Kill or spawn stealing, corpse camping, and ganking come readily to mind. Once upon a time, I was in a tightly-knit Everquest guild, and one of our members started a rant on the guild forums about price gougers.

It was interesting to read his point of view on the subject, since I had actually quit playing the level grinding aspect of EQ in favor of a minigame I had invented for myself. My goal was wealth, albeit the kind represented by pixels on a computer screen rather than something that could be exchanged for real-life items.

It was simple, really: I did my best to buy low and sell high. If I saw an item that I knew to be under-priced, I would scoop it up! To me, it only made sense to make the most of the opportunities that I blundered upon, and if I was willing to risk the currency to purchase an item in the first place then I deserved the profit I could potentially make if I later sold it for more.

Yes. What I'm trying to say is that I was one of the dirtiest, most a-moral creatures to ever dwell in the MMORPG genre. I was a reseller.

Honestly, though I can understand where the average player comes from when they rant against my ilk, I still see nothing fundamentally wrong with the practice. EQ had a free market economy, and I was just following the basic idea of supply and demand. The rarer an item is, the more someone is willing to pay for it, and therefore the higher its perceived worth.

If I am familiar with the current market value of an item, then it is my prerogative to purchase and resell it.

...right?

Am I just rationalizing my actions? Am I deluding myself into thinking my dark economagic is legitimate? What is your opinion on the practice of reselling in MMORPGs?